Single Speed Daily Commuters in Bangalore

[murali m]

Hi All,

Is anyone commuting daily on a single/fixed bike, if so what are the downside you have noticed so far.

[Ali Poonawala]

None !

Ali

On Tue, 31 Jul 2018 22:38 murali m, <mural...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi All,

Is anyone commuting daily on a single/fixed bike, if so what are the downside you have noticed so far.

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[Karthick Gururaj]

Not daily, not as often as I want, but all cycle rides are fixed gear. No downsides. Easy to maintain and fun to ride.

I use front brake for sudden stops, BTW; can't ride brakeless. 

Karthick

[Parag]

Serious downside, I dont feel like taking out my roadbike any more ;-(

Daily single speed commuter for 3 years now, upgraded to single speed from a Multi speed MTB. Love the lack of maintenance hassles, esp no cleaning the drivetrain etc.

[Opendro]

I can ride my 24 speed in single speed mode (though I cannot in fixed mode). Obvious downside is that I cannot maintain my optimum cadence. I like to spin at my optimum cadence all the time rather than spinning proportional to the speed.

Obviously, there is an obvious upside of a pure single speed and that is only if the entire chain, chain ring and drive cog can be completely covered from dust and slush. Else, I don't see any upside except for cost of the shifter, derailleur and cassette/freewheel.

[Gourav Sengupta]

I am genuinely surprised, there are literally thousands of people in Bangalore who use single speed cycles. Those are the most sold cycles in India. 

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[Opendro]

Actually, I can list many downsides of a single speed. I cannot quickly remove wheels as it does not have quick-release. This means, changing tube, packing bike in car, etc. are problems. Honestly, it is not worth it (not my opinion, but a fair conclusion). A gear bike is as maintenance free as single speed if one learns just the basics of tuning gear shifts.

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[itisravi]

Approaching 10,000 KM on my Btwin mybike of 4 years. I remember posting on Bikeszone forum on how I recovered the purchase amount within a year of commuting. Bike is still running smooth, no issues whatsoever. Somewhere along the way I had gotten side-ended by a car and had to replace the rear wheel. The guy at Decathlon installed a quick release rear wheel. I was skeptical about a quick release on a frame with horizontal dropout but it has worked fine thus far. Actually, it makes the occasional adjusting of the chain tension easier.

Mybike is the among the best VFM purchases I ever made. :-)

Cheers,

Ravi

[A Jaye Vigneshwar]

I was using single speed ( Hercules AXN DX) bike for my office commute (10 KM one way) almost 3 yrs at Chennai. 

 I'm a Cadence guy too (I have changed my single speed bikes freewheel to 20 tooth. Usually it's 18)

Though I had bought a Schwinn Frontier, the single speed was continued to be used as 

1. I didn't want to ditch my cycle which I fancied during the school days :D - I still have the bike (14 yrs Old)

2. I was trying to make it a point to my colleagues that one can commute using a basic cycle.

3. It doesn't attract unwanted attention on road.

4. I was very much comfortable with the bike's ergonomics. Maybe as I have been riding it for a long time...

While I moved to Bangalore I wasn't comfy with the riding single speed due to the kind of terrain we have here. It was putting lots of strain on my knees during the climbs and I would develop knee pain. Hence I got a Rockrider 300 and started using it for commute.

Conclusion :

If you are going to ride short and the route you would ride doesn't have climbs you can very well ride a single speed.

Single Speed doesn't mean it's cheap bike and Geared bike doesn't mean it's costly.

We have costly single speeds and cheaper geared bikes in the market.

Whatever bike it is, ensure you pick a right frame size with good ride ergonomics(Able to set proper Seat Height, Reach). I have seen the Mach City bikes having very low seat height, which would hurt your knee in long run and as well wouldn't make you feel good to continue Cycling.

Thanks,

Jaye

[Blackmamba]

yes, only downside is my other bikes feeling left out.